A large number of Africans have joined the Russian army since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While some have voluntarily taken up arms via private companies under contract with the Kremlin, others were lured by false promises. One Cameroonian, who thought he was going to Russia to work as a caretaker, reveals the extent of this human trafficking.
"Tomorrow, they want us to go on a suicide mission. I'm going to drop the gun so I don't have to go. I'll probably be tortured and sent to prison, but I'd rather save my life."
This was one of the last messages Samuel (first name changed) sent RFI, in mid-December.
A few weeks earlier, when we first made contact with him, he was in the infirmary of his unit's camp in a region of eastern Ukraine, which we will not specify for security reasons. He was suffering yet another injury, having recently also been treated in a military hospital for a serious arm wound, following a drone attack.
But, Samuel told us: "Here, as soon as we can walk, they send us to the front. And the Africans are on the front line. The Russians stay in the camp, sending the blacks and internationals to the front to occupy and advance. But every time we win, there's a cost, especially the mines, which decimate us."
Samuel's story began in May 2024. Trained as a scientist and having worked for the Ministry of Lands, Cadastre and Land Affairs in Cameroon, he received a call from one of his friends, with whom he had shared his dreams of working abroad.
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"[Patrice] told me it was in Russia but that he didn't have any details, apart from the salary, which was promised to be enormous," said Samuel. "He was in contact with a woman who was taking care of the paperwork, so all I had to do was send a photo of my passport. She told me that once I was in Moscow they would exchange my passport for a Russian passport that would allow me to travel and work."
He continued: "She explained that it was in a military camp, and that I would be like a caretaker with tasks like cleaning and cooking. When she told me about the salary and bonuses, my eyes lit up. My mother and I put together 2.5 million CFA francs [€3,830], and I left with Patrice, who had also quit his job, and three other people."
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But once in Russia, Samuel was in for a surprise. Instead of cooking utensils and cleaning products, he was given a Kalashnikov – which he accepted very reluctantly. In the camp, where he stayed for a few weeks of classes, he rubbed shoulders with many North Africans and sub-Saharans.
Samuel found himself in uniform without knowing exactly who he was fighting for, or in which unit. "The contracts they made us sign are doctored. We don't have a copy of the document, so we don't get the salary we were supposed to. Apparently, the Russian commander who made us sign gets part of it back, so it's a whole chain."
Samuel said he contacted the Cameroonian embassy to discuss his situation, to no avail. "They deny any knowledge of our presence here, even though there are so many of us. They're covering up human trafficking."
He considers his country's diplomatic service complicit, and pointed out that India has obtained the repatriation of 45 of its citizens who were victims of similar deception, after publicly denouncing this type of recruitment. "Our governments don't give a damn about us and they'll never come looking for us."
Contacted by RFI, the Cameroon Ministry of External Relations has not yet responded to our request for comment or further details.
First in training and then at the front, Samuel befriended other Cameroonians and forwarded us messages from the wife of one of them, who begged him for news of her husband.
When we spoke to her by phone, as she held a baby not yet a year old in her arms, she explained: "His parents had major health problems, so he wanted to leave to try and find ways of helping his family. He found an agency that told him about a job in Russia. He left in June, without giving any further details.
"Then I realised that he'd been offered a job in the army, and that he'd signed a one-year contract. He was supposed to do four months of training, except that at the end of July he told me that he was in Ukraine and that he was going on a mission for 10 days and that he'd let me know when he got back. He told me to pray for him. I haven't heard from him since."
Samuel described several photos showing him in small groups with "Malians and Gambians" in one photo, and between "two Egyptians" in another. "One died in a bombing, the other I don't know what his current situation is."
Finally, he told us what became of Patrice, "his friend of many years". He had also died, "leaving behind four children". Samuel added: "His wife calls me, I don't know what to tell her, he was like a brother, it hurts so much."
Of the group of five who boarded the same plane in Yaoundé, three had died and another escaped after sustaining an injury.
The reality of the fighting came as a shock to a man who says he "never fired a shot in my life before I came here".
The Ukrainians, Samuel said, are avoiding contact in order to save their forces, against a Russian army that has no qualms about sending foreign auxiliaries into the fray. "I've never seen a Ukrainian since I've been here. I know people who have been here for two years, they've never seen a Ukrainian with their own eyes, they've never fired a bullet at anyone, there aren't even any enemies. They [the Ukrainians] are hiding, they're running away from us, they're sending us drones with huge bombs, that's what kills you, along with the mines."
He continued: "And we have to move forward, we're not allowed to retreat. The Russians don't back down, they say. If you back out, you're tortured. We have to move forward to occupy the ground. But we're very poorly equipped. The Russians have machines to jam the waves of drones, but they keep them to themselves. They send us to fight and die with nothing at all."
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Samuel knows that if it is discovered he has spoken out, he will be killed. But he is prepared to take the risk.
"What I want is to mobilise the Africans who are travelling to Russia, so that they understand that they are being used. I want to tell people what's going on... so that it stops, so that Africans stop coming here to die. I've lost loved ones. We come here to die in a war that we don't know where it came from or why it started. I'd like to tell my part of the story when it's over."
Although it is difficult to verify the figures for human losses in the Ukrainian conflict, the ratio is clearly unfavourable to Russia and its "cannon fodder" strategy. The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence estimates that 45,680 Russians died in November 2024, more than during any other month since the war began.
In May last year, a Ukrainian intelligence report on Moscow's recruitment of foreign citizens to its army – including those from Nepal, India and Cuba as well as Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo and Uganda – was published by the news site Kyiv Independent.
It reported that these troops "are being recruited as assault troopers by a specially created unit of the Russian Defence Ministry," adding: "The mercenaries are lured by a starting payment of $2,000 for signing a contract, promised a monthly allowance of $2,200, health insurance, and Russian passports for them and their families."
In September, the same media outlet published video testimonies by a Somali and a Sierra Leonean taken prisoner by the Ukrainian army.
The same month, a Ghanaian TV channel broadcast the testimony of a group of 14 Ghanaian nationals who claimed to have been deceived into joining the Russian army by one of their compatriots, a former footballer. They arrived in Russia expecting to take up security jobs, and instead had their passports confiscated and were forced to sign contracts written in Russian.
In another report by Jeune Afrique, published in October, a Central African who managed to flee to Latvia claimed to have been recruited in Bangui by Wagner mercenaries while in police custody. A paramilitary allegedly "bought" his release for several hundred thousand CFA francs, in exchange for his signing a contract for a "security company".
In December 2023, he flew to Russia with other Central African ex-detainees, as part of a group of 300 to 400 sub-Saharan Africans, according to his testimony.
His account prompted condemnation from the Central African Republic's public prosecutor's office, which declared the information it contained was "devoid of any plausibility or legal basis" and stated that there had "never been any recruitment of persons in police custody in the Central African Republic's judicial police units".
Voluntary or not, conditions for these fighters remain perilous on the Eastern Ukrainian front. And there's no question of complaining: Russian mercenaries do not hesitate to publish videos of what happens to deserters, including death by sledgehammer, the favourite tool of Wagner's men.
